Classic Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bake Cookie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why are my no bake cookies not hard? ›

Why Didn't My No-Bake Cookies Set? Likely, you didn't boil the mixture long enough. You want the butter, milk, sugar, and cocoa mixture to boil for 2-3 full minutes and reach between 190°F-200°F. If you don't boil them for long enough, they will turn out gooey and will not set.

If you've glanced at other no-bake cookie recipes then you'll see how important it is to boil the sugar mixture long enough which will help the cookies to set. Boiling too long will cause the cookies to be dry and crumbly. However, if you don't boil long enough the cookies will not set and will be runny.

Why are my cookies dry and crumbly? This is most likely a classic case of using too much flour. It's crucial to properly measure the flour in this recipe, as even 1 extra tablespoon of flour can completely change the structure of the cookies. You also might have over baked them!

The peanut butter cookie was invented in the 1910's, when George Washington Carver of Alabama's Tuskegee Institute published a peanut cookbook in an effort to promote the crop.

Most no-bake cookies have some sticky ingredient to hold it together. If you used something sticky like butter, peanut butter, melted marshmallows or melted chocolate I would pop them in the fridge, so they firm up. If that doesn't help, I would completely dip them in melted chocolate and let them harden in the fridge.

Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly.

Peanut butter

Peanut butter cookie / Main ingredient

Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground, dry-roasted peanuts. It commonly contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, sweeteners, or emulsifiers.

Wikipedia

The oils in natural peanut butter tend to separate, causing cookies to spread and take on a gritty texture. You can use it, but conventional peanut butter is preferred for the best cookie texture.

With so much peanut butter in this cookie dough, natural peanut butter will give you a dry, crumbly cookie.

Prep your Peanut Butter Cookie recipe up to 24 hours in advance, cover it and refrigerate it so you are ready to bake at a moment's notice. The kids can even help you scoop, roll and flatten the cookies. If the dough is too firm to scoop, let it stand at room temperature for about 30 minutes.

What happens if you don't flatten peanut butter cookies? ›

If you don't flatten the cookies first, then the fork does double duty – it performs both functions. One very subtle result of creating the pattern is that the little tips of dough bake up crisper than the rest of the cookie, giving you both a bit of additional texture and deeper taste where the dough is more baked.

Peanut butter cookies have been popular since the early 1900s. In fact, in 1913 the wife of the 28th US President, Woodrow Wilson, published a list of her cookie recipes, which generously included a recipe for Peanut Cookies that, of course, used peanut butter.

A peanut butter cookie is a type of cookie that is distinguished for having peanut butter as a principal ingredient. The cookie originated in the United States, its development dating back to the 1910s.

Peanut butter cookie dough is denser than a lot of other cookie doughs. Putting the hash marks in the cookie dough balls actually flattens them for more even baking. Without being pressed, the cookies will not cook evenly. And nobody likes a cookie that's half burnt and half raw.

Soft-baked cookies are often made using a solid fat with a higher melting point, which prevents the cookie from spreading while baking. The result is a thicker, softer, chewier cookie. Another simple trick for softer cookies is to use chilled dough.

Over-baking is perhaps the most obvious - too long in the oven and your cookies will dry out, so make sure you time it right. Overworking your dough is another common problem, causing excess gluten strands to form, and making your cookie hard and tough.

Oven temperatures are a crucial factor in baking. If your cookies consistently come out flat, you may have selected the wrong baking temperature. If you bake cookies using too much heat, the fats in the dough begin to melt before the other ingredients can cook together and form your cookie's rise.

Incorrectly measured ingredients can be the reason your cookies come out too thin. Too much sugar can cause cookies to come out flat and crispy instead of soft and chewy. This goes for both white sugar and brown sugar. Not enough flour could also be the culprit.